Lau Wong-fat, GBM, GBS, OBE, JP (Chinese: 劉皇發; 15 October 1936 – 23 July 2017) was a Hong Kong businessman and politician.

He had been the long-time chairman of the Rural Council, the most powerful organ representing the interests of the New Territories indigenous inhabitants from 1980 to 2015.

For many years unopposed, in January 2011, he faced the village's approximately 600 voters, after a challenge following the controversy of his failure to disclose some of his property holdings.

He briefly lost this position in April 2011 with his ousting from leadership of the rural committee by another pro-Beijing politician Junius Ho.

[3] The Melhado Investment Ltd in which Lau was a major shareholder sued the government in the early 1980s for its non-agricultural use of land in the New Territories.

[12] In the capacity of the Kuk chairman, Lau was invited to be a guest at the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on 19 December 1984 in Beijing.

In 1991, a Rural functional constituency was created where members of the Heung Yee Kuk elected its own Legislative Council representative.

Lau was uncontestedly elected six times with a brief interruption from 2004 and 2008 where he stood in the District Council functional constituency as the incumbent pro-Beijing legislator Ip Kwok-him of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) lost his District Council seat and therefore ineligible to run.

In the 2008 Legislative Council election, Liberal Party chairwoman Selina Chow accused Lau for campaigning for DAB candidate Cheung Hok-ming, the Kuk vice-chairman, who ran in the same constituency which caused her defeat.

[17] In 2009 and 2010, Lau supported the disputed HK$66.9 billion funding of Express Rail, and advocated the controversial reform of methods for selecting the CE and LegCo.

[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] He was also at the centre of the controversy in the pro-Beijing walkout ahead of the voting on the Methods for Selecting the Chief Executive in 2017 and for Forming the LegCo in 2016 as the pro-Beijing legislators launched walkout was an impromptu attempt to delay the division so that Lau, who was delayed, could cast his vote in favour of the Beijing-backed reforms.

[27] In October 2010, Lau was publicly criticised for his purchase of 19 properties in Yuen Long through companies linked to him after he failed to disclose at least some of the acquisitions to the council within the required 14 days.

[28][29] In a span of 10 days he revised his declared total ownership of land three times, bringing further criticism from leading figures such as Legco House Committee chairwoman Miriam Lau and deputy chairwoman of Legco's Committee on Members' Interests Emily Lau.

[32] He failed to declare the purchases of three houses in Yuen Long in April and 16 flats in Yoho Midtown through Carofaith Investment, in which he holds 40% stake.

His son sold three of them making a profit of HK$800,000 at a time when the government was trying to cool real estate property prices in 2010.

On 22 February 2016, he resigned as the chairman of the Tuen Mun Rural Committee and thus lost the ex-officio membership of the district council and was succeeded by his son Kenneth Lau.

[37][38] In 1983, he succeeded Tang Yuek Fan as chairman of the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk Yuen Long District Secondary School.

From 2004 to 2015 he had represented Hong Kong to perform the Lunar New year kau cim ceremony, succeeding Patrick Ho in the role.